When we talk about money management, we talk in terms of action: earning; saving; giving; spending; paying down debt. We focus on the ‘doing’ but we don’t often consider what drives those actions. I’ve written several posts over the past few years on the psychology of money: the idea that our ability to earn, hold and grow money is inextricably linked to everything we’ve ever heard, seen, and experienced in relation to money, wealth, and rich people. T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, once stated that “a lack of money is never a problem; it’s a symptom of a problem” and this is something that I’ve seen played out many times, both in my own financial journey and in my roles of a financial advisor and financial educator.

“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” – Zig Ziglar

1. Feeling overwhelmed

Be kind to yourself but don’t allow yourself to make excuses. Beating yourself up about your situation won’t help you get away from it but sometimes we can get a little too comfortable with our discomfort and the thought of moving through it to something different can be scary. It’s ok to feel tired and run down; you’re under stress but you’re not doing yourself any favors by letting yourself stay in a stressful situation. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your finances (or anything else), the first step is to identify why: Is your debt out of control? Do you have bills you can’t pay? Has your income dropped? Did you lose your job? Are you struggling with money management? Are you worried about the future? Is money negatively affecting your relationship? Are you keeping money secrets?

Once you’ve named the source(s) of your stress, ask yourself the following question: What one thing could I do to help make this situation better? The power of this particular money demon lies in making us feel powerless; giving us no option but to turn in circles waiting for the next curveball to hit. By finding a way to take action, we regain a little control. By stepping forward and taking action, we regain a little more. Your action step might be something as simple as asking for help: there’s no rule that says “you have to do this alone”. There is strength in numbers and, while there’s no escaping the fact that you’re going to be doing most of the hard work (and taking most of the credit for your success as a result), you’re going to find it an awful lot easier if you have the support and mentorship of good people.

2. Frustration

Frustration tends to have its roots in something negative and often it boils down to either anger or jealousy. If you’re frustrated by your finances, then you have to be willing to ask yourself some dark questions in order to get over the frustration and move on. While asking yourself ‘why’ might not lead you to the answer there’s a good chance that asking yourself ‘who’ will. (Note that this isn’t the blame game. You’re not looking to assign responsibility to someone for your situation; giving up control by identifying as the victim won’t help you move forward.) Chances are if you ask yourself ‘who’ you’ll discover that the person you’re mad at is yourself. That anger might stem from something you did, something you didn’t do, or perhaps a mistaken belief about your own intelligence or your own abilities (yes you are smart enough/brave enough/responsible enough to manage money). When I look back on my own money journey, it would be very easy for me to beat myself up about choices I’ve made and dwell on all the actions I did and didn’t take, and to compare my situation to people who have been far more successful in a myriad of ways than I have. It would be easy for me to allow all of that to frustrate me but I choose not to because it won’t help me get where I want to go. We can’t change the past but we can learn from it and it’s those lessons that can help us build a better financial future for ourselves.

3. Fear

Happily, fear can be one of the easiest money demons to conquer because it can usually be neutralized by information. The more we know about something the fewer unknowns exist to scare our brain. Doing a little research, setting a clear goal and formulating an action plan will go a long way towards calming your fears. Finding examples of people who have succeeded at what you’re attempting rather than examples of people who have failed horribly will also help boost your confidence in your goals and your ability to achieve them and will reduce your fears even further.

At the end of the day, there will always be reasons why not to do something. There will always be people who never got their financial house in order, lived perfectly happy lives and survived their retirement years without having to rely on cat food. There will always be people living in nice houses, driving new cars and happily juggling large amounts of debt and there will always be people earning nothing more than the average wage who are perfectly happy with the size of their paycheque. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, the keyword in each of those examples is “happy”.

If you’re happy with your choices and happy with the life you’re living, then I’m not about to suggest you need to do anything differently (unless you want to). If you’re not happy; if thinking about your financial situation makes you feel overwhelmed, frustrated or fearful then that’s a clear sign that something needs to change. If that’s the case, then identifying and tackling your money demons and learning a little about your money psychology might go a long way toward creating the changes necessary for you to build a financial future that makes you happy.